


Partnership

by tielan



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Action/Adventure, Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-27
Updated: 2011-01-27
Packaged: 2017-10-15 03:13:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/156453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're on the run and on the hunt. But what do the Combori hide from them, and why have they been set to run this maze?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Partnership

The sun beat down mercilessly in the glittering sand of the Combori arena. John wished for his sunglasses as he squinted at the sky, trying to get their bearings from the combined position of the sun and the ‘compass’-like thing he held in his hand that was supposed to point them towards the exit. “Remind me why we’re doing this again?”

They were standing in an alien junkyard, with piles of abandoned and unused bits and pieces from a thousand Pegasus cultures. The Combori had been vague on how the setup had been put in place in the first place, and they hadn’t inquired about it at the time, too interested in other aspects of the Combori culture to give it any kind of consideration.

John figured he could ask after all this was over. If he had breath to ask.

Just ahead of him, Teyla turned her head slightly, poised to listen for the approach of anything or anyone. “Because you were willing to take on the challenge.”

It was an obvious answer to a rhetorical question. If this conversation had taken place two years ago, John would have suspected that Teyla didn’t get it. Since it wasn’t two years ago, he suspected that she was annoyed with him and deliberately playing obtuse.

John reflected that team-mates with a sense of the wry and a willingness to prod were hazardous to an Atlantis military commander’s health.

“You’ve never seen _Blade Runner_ , have you?” John asked as they reached a set of crossroads between piles of junk, pitching his voice low so it couldn’t be picked up by the microphones that were apparently scattered through the terrain.

A quick, quizzical glance flashed his way, but Teyla otherwise kept her eyes watching for the hunters who were after them. “I have not,” she said. “Although I believe the marines considered it a necessary part of Ronon’s induction to Earth movies.”

Yeah, John could believe that. “Remind me to show you it when we get back to Atlantis.”

He squinted up at the brilliance of the sky, trying to determine where they were and how long they’d been in ‘the arena’. They’d taken his watch, their weapons, and their vests, but allowed his dogtags after John demanded to know just what he could do with them - throw them at people?

They let him keep it.

Teyla touched his arm, brushing the bared skin below the sleeve of his t-shirt to gain his attention. “This way.”

John followed her along the avenue she’d indicated, keeping his senses alert for the groups hunting them. According to the Combori challenge master, they would face at least one, possibly four of them, depending on how good he and Teyla were at evading or defeating each subsequent hunter group.

“You know, I agree with Rodney. I don’t get how wandering this junkyard is going to prove us worthy of that ZPM.”

Rodney’s excitement upon discovering that the Combori possessed a ‘glowing device of light’ that was the pride and joy of their civilisation was only exceeded by the Combori Conclave’s delight in discovering that ‘the descendants of the Ancestors’ had returned to Pegasus when John had brushed up against a wall.

However, as John’s team soon discovered, it wasn’t enough to just _be_ the descendants of the Ancestors, the team actually had to _prove_ their worthiness to reclaim the treasure.

Rodney had made the quip about reality TV, while John had immediately thought of quests for the holy grail.

The Combori had simply laid the challenges out before them.

Ronon had ended up fighting the Combori champion - a man at least as big as Ronon, and considerably more war-scarred. Exactly _what_ war had scarred him, the Combori refused to say, but the man was good enough to give Ronon a challenge. They fought to a standstill, which seemed to be enough for the Combori.

Rodney had been presented with a crystal motherboard for one of the devices in the palace - broken for so many generations that the dust coating it would have put Vesuvius’ Pompeii to shame. He’d scoffed at the apparent simplicity and started reconfiguring the motherboard for energy sources, only to find that the usual reconfiguration lattices didn’t work. It had taken a bit of sweat, a lot of complaining, and some serious calming down of Rodney by Teyla before Rodney found a configuration that _did_ work.

And then John and Teyla were sent into the arena.

It didn’t look like any arena John had ever seen. It looked like an intergalactic tipyard, full of piles of junk through which threaded narrow paths - one of which John and Teyla were presently making their way along, their senses on the lookout for the hunters that were due to come after them any minute now.

John didn’t really think it was a _Blade Runner_ situation.

He was just feeling a bit edgy.

Apparently, the natives of P8X-975 had been known to both Athosian and Satedan for generations - a society that was moderately advanced in technology, but willing to live at a lower technological standard than they could achieve in order to survive the Wraith cullings. However, until AR-1 arrived on the planet, with two members possessing the ATA gene, nobody in the Pegasus galaxy had suspected that the cheerful, friendly, trade-oriented Combori had been keepers of Ancient secrets and technology.

Of which the most prized and most carefully-guarded was a ZPM.

They refused to show it to them, of course. But Rodney’s awkwardly-drawn diagram elicited a general nodding of heads from the Conclave. Yes, they had one of those devices. But they were not permitted to give it to just _anybody_.

“The Combori have been keeping this secret for many generations, John,” said Teyla. “You would be cautious, too.”

“I don’t like it,” he murmured as they passed an outcropping of something that looked like crushed car parts, squeezed into rough shapes by forces unknown. Some of the parts looked familiar in a ‘I remember seeing those when they used to be whole’ kind of way. “Are those Wraith darts?”

Teyla didn’t give them anything more than a cursory glance. “They appear to be.”

John grimaced, thinking that maybe he shouldn’t have let Rodney enthuse him into this. While his friend was a whiner and a grump and a pessimist, the one thing that got him really fired up was Ancient technology and the possibility of a ZPM. And then he became a whiner and a cajoler and a nuisance. “You know, when we get out of this, I’m going to be asking these Combori some really pointed questions.”

He caught only the corner of her smile, the diffuse sunlight sliding tan-gold along the line of her jaw an instant before the white-clad hunters whirled out of their concealed hiding spots.

The white clothing was blinding on the eyes - probably intended that way. John only just saw the blow that came at him, and felt the jarring stress of blocking it too late and without sufficient leverage.

He shoved the other man - he presumed it was a man - back, trying to give himself space to see and counter any attacks. Teyla was drawing her attacker away from them - a good tactical move if there weren’t more of them around.

John didn’t know if there were more of them around. There was no way of telling - the Combori hadn’t been so helpful as to tell them how many people were featured in the hunting groups after him and Teyla.

In fact, they’d been quiet on a lot more points than John liked.

He didn’t keep an eye on Teyla - she was capable of looking after herself, and if her opponent was more than she could handle then John was in trouble anyway. The guy coming after him seemed more than a match for John - slimmer, yes, but with the wiry kind of muscle that told of significant strength.

 _Like a ninja without the nunchuks,_ John thought to himself. _Don’t close with him._ If it came down to wrestling, John would lose. He couldn’t watch the chest for the next move, the swathing white was an effective cover. _So watch his eyes and try to think ahead._

The man tried to close with him, but John spun him off, using a technique he’d learned against Ronon. Grab the upper arms, swing around, and use momentum to throw him off by stepping aside. It had meant hours of humiliation and training with the younger, fitter man, but as John sidestepped and shoved, he figured it was worth it.

White Ninja Guy only gave further proof to his name by neatly rolling down into the dust over one shoulder and getting up without so much as an ‘oof’. He rose nimbly and planted his feet wide in a fighter’s crouch. John wondered if he and Teyla could make a run for it, then dismissed the idea.

 _I’m better with a gun in my hand,_ he thought as he fell into a matching stance, knees bent, ready to take on an opponent.

White Ninja Guy feinted to the left, John countered him. He tried grabbing hold of the hand that lashed out at him to use as leverage, but the cloth was slippery and slid out from under his fingers. John circled around, trying to work out how to turn this to his advantage.

 _Okay. Let’s close and try something, then..._ John feinted off to the side, then stepped back. When White Ninja Guy began to follow through on on the defence, John lunged forward, grabbing the man’s torso, then twisting them both sideways. The ninja’s leg hit the low railing sticking out of a nearby heap, taking them both down amidst a cloud of dust and a clatter of metal parts.

Landing on top of them both, John made use of his advantage and lifted a fist. “Yield.” It was allegedly the standard response for defeat of a hunter.

“Yielded,” came the husky reply, slightly breathless.

John backed off and turned to see how Teyla was doing.

Of course, she’d already defeated her opponent. She was standing over the kneeling form of the other ninja, with a gun-like weapon pointed at the man’s nape. One hand brushed a wisp of hair from her face, with all the nonchalance of a woman who’d just taken a stroll and had the wind blow her hair awry. Very little fazed Teyla. “Your opponent should have a weapon, also, John.”

Rather than search the other guy, John moved out of Teyla’s line of fire. “Keep a bead on him.” Then he turned to look at the man. “Well?”

White Ninja Guy shrugged. “I left it behind at the ambush point over there.” He indicated with one hand, still sitting in the dust, his arms around his knees as casually as if he hadn’t just fought in the blazing sun. John wondered if there wasn’t something in the Lawrence of Arabia robes: the damp patches of his shirt were making themselves known to his skin.

“Right.” But John didn’t turn around to search. The other man might have yielded, but it went against John’s grain to leave an opponent behind him. It was a game, but there wasn’t any reason not to treat it as though it was real life. “Teyla...”

“The weapons numb the senses,” she said. “A headshot will temporarily paralyse.”

John was surprised. “He told you?”

“Ronon was taking an interest in the Combori weapons before you discovered they possessed the technology of the Ancestors.”

John vaguely remembered Ronon’s deep rumble behind him as Rodney asked various questions of the Combori. He’d heard something about optimum firing phase and had been about to turn around when they reached a room that lit up like a firecracker at John’s entry.

Things had gotten a little hectic aftter that.

Both Teyla and her prisoners were waiting for John’s decision.

He frowned down at the yellow dust around his feet, thinking. “How temporary is the paralysis?”

“Three thousand heartbeats,” answered White Ninja Guy. “A little more for some, a little less for others.”

John did some rough math in his head. “Thirty minutes.” It would give them enough time to get away. “Is there anything you’d like to share with us before we shoot you?”

White Ninja Guy smiled. “Winning is not the end and all of what you face, John Sheppard.”

“That’s it?”

The man’s smile was a gleaming flash of teeth in a face burned brown by the sun’s intensity. A moment later, there was a soft hiss, and a rippling wave of _something_ that hit him squarely in the head. He collapsed like he’d been dealt a blow to the skull, lolling sideways into the dust. A moment later, Teyla was easing her prisoner down to the ground and arranging the folds of his headcloth over his face so he wouldn’t end up with a mouthful of dust.

John did the same for White Ninja Guy, as well as arranging the guy so he was on his back and performing a rough search for another one of the weapon Teyla had.

“He said he left it behind at the ambush point,” Teyla said, indicating the place from which the white-clad attackers had appeared.

“We’ll want to move on fast,” noted John as he searched the shapes and patterns of the rubble, seeking the curving lines of the device Teyla had. “Can’t see it.”

Teyla took two steps over. “We have one weapon.”

“I’d prefer it if we had one weapon _each_ ,” he said with an envious glance at the slim, needle-pointed device she held.

“We do not,” she said with her typical practicality and no sign that she was about to surrender the weapon to John. “Should we not keep moving?”

As they moved down the avenue, keeping an eye on the sun and their surroundings, John let Teyla draw slightly in front, fighting down the urge to argue that he should have the weapon and she should navigate. It went against the grain to leave someone else in control of the situation - even someone he trusted.

However, he noted that she’d turned her body away from him to cover the angles he wasn’t watching. John had never worked out if Ford had explained it to her, or if she’d just picked it up while on his team. There was no telling with Teyla.

 _Does it really matter?_ He asked himself as they passed what looked like the collective volume of thrown-out wiring from the SGC. _She’s on the lookout, all you have to do is be prepared for the next attack._

It didn’t stop him from feeling uncomfortably exposed.

“Did I mention that I hate feeling like I’m in an episode of _Big Brother_?” John asked.

“Was it not _Blade Runner_ that you referenced?” Teyla inquired wryly.

“It’s the same thing. Mostly. Except less people die in _Big Brother._ Usually.”

Teyla rested her hip against a broken stone column and used it as shelter to check around the corner. “You believe that we are likely to die in this encounter?”

He indicated the direction the compass was pointing them. “No. I just have the feeling they haven’t told us everything.”

They quickly made their way around the corner and through the intersection that followed. “And you did not mention this earlier?”

“No one tells us everything, Teyla. It’s endemic around here. Like exactly where we’re supposed to go, how long it’s going to take us to get there, and how we’re going to get there _other_ than following the compass.” John’s automatically lowered his voice as it echoed too loudly off a nearby metal box. “You know, Requisitions And Supply would love this place.”

“Removing them from this place would be like whipping starving herdbeasts from the feed.” Teyla said, pausing to flash him a small smile.

John lifted an eyebrow at the saying. Teyla didn’t often descend into idiom, but when she did, it was remarkable. And usually a sign that she was tired or annoyed. Since he was pretty sure he hadn’t done anything too offensive lately, it probably meant she wasn’t at her best. “Do you want me to take point and you navigate for a while?” The fact that he would rather have been point had nothing to do with his question.

She stepped into the shadow of a stone column twice her height to take the sun out of her eyes, and John did the same on his side of the path.

His movement was probably what ‘saved’ him. The flash of pain in his shoulder was all the warning he had.

His cry of pain as he moved out of the narrow pathway was all the warning Teyla had.

Against the loose slats in the top of the board that hid him from the weapons fire, John took a quick inventory. His right shoulder felt both hot and numb - although he had no idea how that was possible - and his arm wasn’t lifting, although his fingers were still clutching the compass. That was a visual check, not a tactile one - he could see the compass in his hand, he just couldn’t feel his fingers around it. It was unnerving.

The hissing noise of the weapons discharge from nearby suggested that Teyla was firing back. “John?”

“I’m fine.” If fine could be counted as having a shoulder that wasn’t working and felt numb along the upper arm, and achey at shoulder and elbow.

“I cannot see them,” she said, her back against the column before she spun out and fired off a couple more shots. “Not to aim. Can you?”

John glanced behind him, his back up against a wooden boardlike object with some slatting up the top. Mindful of his shoulder, he shifted himself and tried to see out the slatting. Now, more than ever, John regretted that he hadn’t offered to take point in the first place. Teyla was a cool head and a good shot, but didn’t have the sniping experience John did. If he’d still been able to shoot, then he would have asked for the weapon off her and done it himself.

“Got any idea how many of them there are?”

“I count at least three,” came her answer.

Right. John peered through the slat as Teyla continued firing, mostly blind. He thought he glimpsed one as the man ducked out from behind his shelter. “Ten o’clock,” he said. “Behind a reddish metal drum.” He glanced across at her. Teyla had taken shelter behind the column again, but her eyes were staring up at the sky.

Worried, John glanced over his shoulder, looking for signs that someone had set up an ambush to come at them from behind. Everything in that direction was silent. “Teyla?”

She spun out from behind the column, setting her sights in the direction of the red drum. John counted four shots before someone managed a return volley and she slipped back into shelter again. A quick peek through the slats showed one down. A white-clad arm was visible by the drum.

“Good shooting,” he said as he scoped out the rest of the terrain, looking for the others. “Two-thirty, up high. I think he has a bolt hole. Leave him for the moment...” He waited for the next set of shots, trying to internalise the sounds around him, the noises of the arena and anything that might be out of place.

Teyla slipped out and fired a couple of shots, then slipped back in again.

“Another one?”

“I believe so, Colonel.” She was staring up at the sky again.

“What are you doing?” When Teyla looked at him, surprised, John elaborated. “You keep staring up at the sky.”

Understanding dawned. “I am visualising where I must shoot.”

“Oh.” John turned back to the slats before curiosity took hold of him. “Do you usually do that?”

“When I fire? Much of the time, yes. Why?”

He shrugged. “Just wondering.”

Teyla turned and fired a few more times, but not responding fire came back. They looked at each other. “Perhaps they have retreated?”

A quick glance through his peephole showed nothing - not even the white-clad hand that had been sticking out. “It’s hard to tell. They’ve backed off for the moment - taken their ‘dead’ with them.”

Her gaze rested on his shoulder. “Your shoulder?”

John rolled it - or tried to. It jerked a little, and the ache renewed itself, allowing itself to be noticed now that he wasn’t in the middle of a firefight without a weapon. He tested his fingers around the compass and discovered he could move them, even if he wasn’t feeling anything from them. “Looks like I won’t be good for much other than holding the compass,” he said, switching the compass from one hand to the other by sight rather than by kinesthetic sense.

Teyla didn’t disagree, which irked him a little - irrationally, maybe, but irked all the same.

It was Teyla’s thought to check the area around the red drum, just in case they’d left behind another weapon, but there was nothing there.

“Guess we continue on,” John muttered.

\--

The compass led them on and the terrain began to change. The sun shifted its position slowly across the sky, and John felt the hot sting of its rays on his hair and on his skin as they walked past the discarded piles of a thousand worlds.

“How would they bring all this here?” Teyla wondered as they passed a set of heavy blocks. The blocks formed a tall wall that loomed several yards in the air, with a slim niche about halfway along the wall that wasn’t more than half a yard wide or deep.

“If it was dumped by the Ancients, then they would have had the ‘jumpers to move things around, I guess.” John shrugged, his mind on more practical things. “You know, we’re going to need water pretty soon. And somewhere to rest. The sun’s too harsh overhead, and if we don’t get some water, we’re going to collapse.” He was accustomed to the desert heat, but even during that nightmare in Afghanistan, he’d had supplies to keep him going - food and water. “At the least, we need a bolthole.”

He saw the movement ahead of them first - the flash of a white hood over a bright red head - and touched Teyla’s shoulder. “Incoming.”

John turned back and paused. They’d taken the path down this way because it was the shadiest and the least open, and the compass pointed in this direction. But while the discarded materials built high provided shade, they didn’t provide protection from the synapser fire.

“It’s too far back to the previous intersection,” he muttered. A long, straight stretch, with nowhere to hide and people behind them, shooting at them? They’d be the proverbial fish in barrels.

“Then we must go forward,” said Teyla, breaking into a run. She fired twice down the long path, trying to ensure nobody had a chance to return fire at them. John followed as closely as he could, struggling to keep up with her. Teyla had an amazing turn of speed for such a petite woman.

He was pretty sure he felt at least one shot go past his head - a buzzing, itchy sensation that set his hair on end. Rodney would have sneered that his hair was already _on_ end. Thankfully for John, Rodney wasn’t here.

They reached the next intersection and Teyla cornered, then stopped dead and spun on her heel. “That way,” she said.

“What?”

With unusual force from her, she shoved him back across the intersection into the other side. “Go!”

John ran, feeling her hand at the back of his waist, clenching his t-shirt. “You going to explain this, Teyla?”

“It was not a good path to follow,” was all she said. A moment later she let go of his shirt, and John went several steps further before he realised she wasn’t following and glanced back over his shoulder.

“Teyla?”

She was standing facing the wall - not metal, not stone - which formed one side of the alley along which they’d been running. All across the face of the wall were inscribed symbols - a bizarre kind of decoration.

“Can we look at the décor later?”

Teyla glanced at him. “Colonel, I believe that this is...” She trailed off. Then she touched one of the symbols on the wall and stepped back when it glowed a dull, fiery red.

“Okay,” John said. “Pretty. Teyla, what’s this going to do?”

“Wait, John.” She thrust the weapon at him, and John took up position alongside her, dividing his attention between her and the two directions from which their opponents would come, hoping that he wouldn’t need to do any precision firing. Teyla was studying the wall, her eyes skimming over the designs as she stepped back, looking for something that John couldn’t see.

“Teyla?”

She glanced at him, but said nothing. Instead, she reached out to touch other points on the wall - seven or eight of them by John’s count, and spread out across the face of the wall. Each symbol she touched glittered, darkly scarlet.

“Teyla...” He didn’t know what was going on, but he was trusting she knew what she was doing. He just felt exposed and nervous.

“I am nearly done.” She reached out and traced her finger through the lines of the first symbol. Stepped back as the eight symbols flashed incandescent white, and a door opened in the wall - an archway that rose to a peak about a foot above John’s head.

“Okay. That was unexpected.” John was surprised, but Teyla was already stepping into the darkness beyond the door, fearless.

No point in asking if she was sure about this. John had no idea what she’d seen to suggest that this was here, let alone how to open it, but she’d moved with the kind of certainty that said she knew what she was doing.

And if Teyla knew what she was doing, John figured he could follow.

John glanced both ways down the avenue, and walked into the darkness, one hand stretched out in advance warning.

“Trace through the symbol on the door,” came Teyla’s voice from the darkness. “It will close.”

John wondered if they _wanted_ to close the door. It was pitch-black inside, he could only just see Teyla’s outline, and in spite of the brilliance of the light outside, very little reflection illuminated the room. They couldn’t see where they were, what they were doing, or what was in the room.

But if his military training made him question, his experiences with Teyla prompted him to comply.

It was just trust.

John ran the little finger of his left hand along the lines of the symbol in the middle of the door - a swirling shape that ended in a V-like bounce up to the right.

And stepped back as the door swung shut, sealing them into the dark.

As the last crack of light disappeared, John reached out to where he’d last seen Teyla, and touched something warm and smooth - her arm. At least, he hoped it was her arm.

“John?”

“Unless you’re expecting someone else to be around,” he said. “You’re sure about this?”

Light flooded the room, abrupt as if someone had flipped a switch. Teyla glanced at him, a slight smile on her lips. “I am now.”

They were standing in the corner of a large, rectangular room that looked a little like one of the rooms in Atlantis. The architecture was very similar, although the colours were wrong for Atlantis - instead of the green-blue walls and rust-red floor, the colours were cream and a deep, leafy green.

In the middle of the room was a table set with two plates of food, two water bottles and a tall jug of water.

“Nice,” John commented as they crossed over to the table and inspected the food that had been left them - a large pastie each and several pieces of fruit. “Someone’s been listening to our conversations.”

“Or they knew that we would require sustenance,” Teyla murmured. She seemed less interested in the food than in the room itself, stepping away to study the designs on the walls and panels of the room.

“Or that.” His fingers brushed over the water bottles - stretched and dried hide over a curving bone frame, with a cork stopper and a leather strap for going over the shoulder. “Looks like we’ve been given something to go forward with, anyway.”

No response came from Teyla, and John glanced up to find her staring at the wall. “How’d you know this was here, anyway?”

Teyla turned, and he saw her confusion. “I... It was something I remembered from the city on Athos.”

John stared at her, remembering the shadowy buildings across the river from the Athosian camp that long-ago morning and her warning to Sumner. “I thought your people didn’t go down into the city.”

“We did not,” she said, tugging out her hair-tie and finger-combing through her hair. “But it was a game of the children and the adolescents to see how close people would go.”

“And you went in.” He picked up one of the pasties and bit into it. It contained meat and some kind of root vegetables, and was just spicy enough to set his tongue tingling with the first bite. But the pastry was crisp and buttery, and melted on his tongue, balancing out the spiciness. “This is good.”

Teyla eyed her portion as she bound back her hair again. “I went as far as the stone archway that marked the edge of the city boundaries. The markings upon the arch were the same as the symbols that were on the wall.”

“Okay.” John wiggled his fingers, sprinkling pastry flakes. “So what do the symbols mean?”

She seemed pensive, her eyes on the pastry as her finger trailed along one crimped edge. “According to my father, the symbols said, _Through this arc of stone, find your rest._ ”

John swallowed his mouthful. “Through this arc of stone... Is that...?” He hesitated. “Is that where your ceremony for the Athosian dead comes from?” He hadn’t been there for her when her mentor died, but he’d gone to see her as soon as he could get away from cleaning up after the crisis with the Goa’uld and the bomb in the city.

“Yes.” Teyla said.

“So the Combori have similar roots to the Athosians?”

“They may.” She hesitated, broke off a flake of pastry and licked it from her fingertip. “Now I am wondering if my people were supposed to be as the Combori are - keepers of the treasure of the Ancestors. We had devices of the Ancestors, once, long ago.”

John put his pastie down. “Teyla--”

“It is possible that, over time, we forgot our responsibilities to the Ancestors,” she murmured. “That what was left to us were given away in exchange for other things. Food, supplies, trading rights.” Her lashes lifted, meeting John’s gaze for just a moment, before sweeping back down again. “There were times in my people’s history when we did not revere the Ancestors quite so much.”

“You’ve met a few of the Ancients yourself,” John pointed out. “They’re not quite as wise and noble as some of your people would like to think.”

Teyla regarded the pastie, and eased off another flake of the pastry. “No. However, if my people were given such responsibility...”

“ _If_ your people were given responsibility,” John pointed out. “It’s not like you _know_ this for sure, Teyla.”

A few seconds passed during which John wondered if she was going to listen to him.

“You are right,” she said after a moment. “But still...” Her glance around the room was slightly wistful.

John thought about asking if she wanted to go back to Athos and check out the city when they got out of this - maybe they might find some answers to the questions she was asking.

He decided against it. After the Wraith razed Athos, they’d gone back to pick through the wreckage of the Athosian camp. John still remembered the pain on Teyla’s face as she sifted through the rubble and tried not to look at the scorched earth around her. Maybe later, he could bring it up - but not right now when she was caught up in the past and how her people might or might not have failed the Ancients.

“Well,” he said, “we found rest through an arc - although it wasn’t of stone.” He hesitated a moment, then reached out and squeezed her hand. He still felt uncomfortable, attempting to offer comfort, but she’d understood him last time, and he figured she’d understand him this time.

Her smile, slow and warm, was more than worth the discomfort. “Thank you.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I should be thanking you - I mean, we’ve got food and drink and somewhere out of the sun for a while.” John glanced back to the corner where they’d ‘entered’ the place, and wasn’t entirely surprised to find no sign of the door. “I guess we’re not done yet?”

“I believe that this is a waystation,” Teyla said. “Somewhere to rest. We have not reached the other end of the arena yet.”

John watched as she finally took a bite from her pastie.

“I’m beginning to wonder if we will,” he said, taking over the conversation so she could eat. “I mean, we’ve pretty much wandered around in circles all morning. The compass provides us with a direction, but we don’t know what direction that is.”

Teyla frowned as she swallowed her mouthful of pastie. “But you have been following it all morning.”

“Yeah. Because we didn’t have much choice. Or a chance to stop and think about it. And stopping to argue in the middle of a war zone is even more stupid than following blindly. Not,” he added, seeing the glitter in her eye, “that following you was stupid.”

She’d been the one willing to trust the word of the Combori; John was the suspicious one.

“An adequate save,” she allowed with a brief smile.

John made a face at her. “Thank you.” He pointed at the fruit, bulbous and heavy, but with a skin that was leathery like a banana peel and with a bit of ‘give’ to the flesh. “Do you know what these are? Do we peel them or eat them straight?”

Teyla shook her head and John shrugged and went with trying to peel it from base of the stem. It was surprisingly juicy, with a sweet, slightly tart taste to it, and Teyla laughed as he tried to catch a fruity droplet that slid down his hand.

“Don’t laugh until you’ve eaten yours,” he retorted. “How much longer do you think this challenge is going to take, anyway?”

She considered the question, her head tilted a little to the side. “I do not believe they intend to keep us here overnight.”

Comforting. But John noticed that she didn’t answer the question. “So how long _do_ you think they’re going to keep us here?”

Teyla reached for the water bottle, unstoppered it, and took a drink. She seemed to be thinking, so John waited for her answer. “When they discovered we were from Atlantis - the city of the Ancestors - they were both excited and apprehensive. Their people have been waiting a long time to discharge this duty.” The bottle was set aside and the last of the pastie picked up. “They set Ronon to fight their champion, and Rodney to fix something that has been long broken. A physical challenge and an intellectual one. So far, we have faced mostly physical challenges.”

“The wall outside?”

“Perhaps this is not a challenge of physical or intellectual capability, but to see how well those two are melded together.”

John frowned a little. “You’re saying that Ronon’s one extreme, Rodney’s the other, and we’re kinda in the middle?”

“That is one interpretation.”

“Huh.” John took another bite of fruit and dabbed at the juices that slid down his chin. “All right,” he said, when Teyla laughed. “Let’s see you eat yours.”

She wasn’t much more successful in her attempt, dripping juice across the plate and her hands, while John sat back and grinned at her mess. He was a little less comfortable as she sucked on her fingers without embarrassment or self-consciousness, licking delicately from base to fingertip until she caught John watching her.

John cleared his throat. “You know, maybe this is about co-operation,” he said as she fished out a damp wipe from one of her pockets and finished cleaning her fingers. “How we work together.”

“Earthling and Athosian?”

“Or Pegasus native and non-native. Co-operation, maybe. Your brains and my beauty.” He waited for her smile, caught it, kept going. “Or maybe it’s just part of their procedures. Everyone on the team needs to be proven worthy.” He grimaced as he sat back and surveyed the room. “I really wish they’d told us more about this before they sent us in.”

“Perhaps it would not have served the purposes of the test,” Teyla suggested. “If they wished to observe us in co-operation, telling us would defeat that purpose.”

John shrugged. “I don’t like it.”

“Demanding answers will get you nowhere, John.”

He glanced over at her and didn’t ask how she’d known his thoughts. There were times when her intuition was uncanny and John had always found it was better not to ask. Instead, he changed the topic, moved forward instead of digging his heels in. “So, you ready to move on?”

“I am not eager to go back out into the day” Teyla admitted. “But there is no indication of how long we may stay here.”

“I just want to get this done with.” John stood and picked up the water bottle, pulling the strap over his shoulder and realising as he did so that his arm felt better. He hadn’t been paying that much attention to it in the ‘safehouse’ and now that they were out, it seemed he had full movement and feeling again.

As he turned towards the corner of the room from which they’d come, he rolled the shoulder and tested the fingers. All feeling and movement was back - had come back while he was eating lunch. Huh. And he’d hardly even noticed it.

He noticed the lack of door about the time he glanced up at the blank corner. And turned around, looking for an alternative exit.

The room had none.

“Okay,” he said. “Perhaps the question should be, how do we get out?”

With her water bottle settled over her shoulder, Teyla turned to survey the room, apparently unconcerned by the lack of egress.

Teyla frowned a little at the wall she’d been studying before. “I do not think that...” She trailed off. “Oh.”

“Oh?” As she brushed past him, moving to a corner of the wall where an intricate set of carvings had been done in wall, circled by painted designs. “Is that a good ‘oh’ or a bad ‘oh’?” Her exasperation was plain enough. “I’m just asking.”

She turned to study one of the designs in the wall, crouching down to see the work better. Then, without a word to John, she turned so she was facing parallel to the wall, and walked past, brushing her fingers across its surface as she went.

A wave of light washed over her form and she was gone.

“Teyla!” John lunged forward, his heart pounding in his chest, even as he tried to reason it all through.

 _Okay, assume these tests are benign. They’re not going to hurt us or disassemble us - I hope._ Teyla had been looking at something before she touched the wall. John had no idea which design she’d been studying, but if he got a closer look himself... _Not that I’d even know what I’d be looking for._

It would be better than standing around waiting.

He frowned at the wall, trying to see what Teyla had seen. There were at least three distinct sets of designs around slightly raised wall decorations. In Atlantis, the wall decorations were square-ish shapes with rounded edges. Here, the decorations were round, spinning off tendrils that swirled out across the wall in connecting patterns.

John wondered if it had had any meaning to Teyla, or if she’d just gotten lucky - or unlucky.

With more than a little trepidation, he reached out to touch the centrepiece of the nearest design.

Nothing.

No beams of light, no choral voices, no sudden change of location.

 _All right. Not that one, then._ John took up position about where Teyla had started her walk and looked along the wall. Nothing suggested itself there. _She began here, and brushed her fingers across the wall. She’s a bit shorter than you, so..._

As his fingers drifted across the rough surface of one of the designs, everything went white, then gold.

\--

The gold was the sand of the arena and the sun reflecting off a set of bronzed panels right to where John was standing.

Teyla stepped forward. “John?”

“Actually, John’s not here right now. I’m his evil twin.”

She chuckled. “I believe you may need a break from Rodney.”

“Everyone could do with a holiday from Rodney. Including Rodney.” John took a quick survey of where they’d come out. It didn’t look like the same area they’d gone in. He began fishing the compass out of his jacket pocket. “What did you do to get out?”

Teyla’s hand closed over his, startling him, but she was only taking the compass from his hands, and after a moment’s frozen surprise, he let her take it.

“You should take the weapon,” Teyla explained, quite unaware of the way the hairs on his arms had suddenly gone to goosebumps. “You are the better shot.”

“Thanks,” he said, getting the weapon out as well. Just how he’d come to be carrying both, he couldn’t remember anymore. But he certainly couldn’t use both.

Teyla looked up from the compass with a wicked twist to her smile. “If they see us, they will shoot for you first.”

“Thanks.”

They started out, with John leading the way, and Teyla guiding him with a word or a touch on his shoulder or back as they made their way through the maze of junk and bits and pieces that formed the arena. After the second touch, John wished she wouldn’t. She wasn’t hitting him or anything, but the light brush of her fingers was distracting.

 _It’s just your own imagination,_ he told himself. _You don’t usually mind when she touches you._

 _Because Teyla’s not usually this tactile._

As they walked along an alleyway of sandstone, complete with cathedral-like niches in which statues of saints would usually reside, John wondered if he should be worried.

“The designs on the wall of the sanctuary were from the Syitah ruins,” Teyla said, her voice echoing against the stone.

“Huh?”

“You asked what I did to get out,” she said, her footsteps crunching behind him in the sand. “The Syitah were a race that were once allied with Athos, generations and generations ago. They also revered the Ancestors, but vanished one year without any sign of what happened.”

“Vanished without a trace?”

“Yes. It is believed that the Wraith took them.”

“But?” There was a ‘but’ in there. John could hear it.

“It is rare that a culling takes all, and there were no survivors. According to the stories passed down, there was no destruction to their village groups - it was as though they simply left everything behind them.”

Behind John, the footsteps stopped. He turned, alarmed, but Teyla was simply staring at him, understanding on her face. “They achieved ascension.”

“The Syitah.”

“Yes.” Her eyes were large and astonished. “I never thought it before...”

“You didn’t know about it until we turned up,” John pointed out. “And you’ve never come across Syitah stuff before.”

Teyla started moving again, and John continued on, out of the sandstone passageway and along a wood-panelled alleyway that looked rather the worse for wear.

“I have never seen their designs anywhere but in the ruins - not until now. It was a design from their holy place - a symbol of their...” This time, there was a break in her voice, but not in her foosteps. “It was a symbol of their goal - an escape from the constraints of the world.”

She said it with a kind of wonder, like someone finally seeing the light. John smiled to himself at the tone. It was rare to see her caught off-balance, amazed, although there had been a few moments over the years.

“Ascension.”

“Yes.”

“And you were curious, so you wandered over and touched it.”

“Yes.”

John paused. “Haven’t I already had this conversation with Rodney?”

Her laugh rang out. “It is possible, Colonel. Clearly, I was not listening when you gave it.”

He sighed, theatrically, and they moved on.

The going was easier now that he had something in his stomach. It might not have been as full a meal as John would have liked, but between the food, and the water he now carried over his shoulder, the situation was better than it had been.

In the next hour - according to John’s internal time sense, they were attacked twice. Once as they passed between what looked like a scaled-down hull of the Starship Enterprise and a heat-slagged blob of something, and once as they came out into a wide open area, nearly as large as a colosseum.

The first time, Teyla hid while John picked off three men. Once he got the range and feel for the weapon, it was easy enough.

The second time, in the colosseum-like area, she played stalking horse while John played sniper. The suggestion was hers, and although John protested at first, she insisted.

Her protestation of “ _I will not get hit, John,_ ” wasn’t exactly the most reassuring of endorsements, but John let her out - against his better judgement, it had to be added.

As it turned out, he needn’t have worried.

She dodged and jinked her way through the clusters of junk that speared up from the sand, somehow avoiding being shot by the synapser guns, although he saw several shots miss her by narrow margins before he sighted the hunter trying to take her out and got a few of his own shots in.

The last of the ‘white ninjas’ seemed to have worked out what they were up to, and went for Teyla, one on one. He didn’t have a chance.

She disposed of him quite neatly, relieving him of his weapon and taking him hostage behind a section of board. John scoped out the nearby areas, watching and waiting for any more attackers, listening for footsteps or movement from behind the junk piles.

When he was reasonably sure there wasn’t anyone else waiting for them to come out into the clear, John stepped out and waved Teyla and her prisoner over.

“No, you can’t take him home,” John said, amused.

Teyla’s arched brow might have indicated that she got the joke, or it might have indicated that she was questioning his sanity. “I believed that you had questions,” she said to John.

“Good idea.”

Although Rodney was the king of smug, there were times when John thought that Teyla did a creditable smirk. Nothing big or showy, just the faintest knowing quirk that said she was good and she knew it. “Thank you, Colonel.”

John turned to the hunter, and pulled off the hood. “Sorry,” he apologised as the man winced. “I prefer seeing who I’m interrogating.”

“Okay.” Although he squinted into the sun, the guy seemed nonchalant, resigned to being captured. “I’ll answer what I can.”

John hesitated.

The guy was bluff and hearty, square face, heavy jaw, needed a shave. John felt his own five o’clock shadow prickle and resisted the urge to rub his hand along his jaw. Cleanliness later; first, he had some questions he wanted answers to.

“I don’t suppose you have any idea how much longer we’re going to be doing this?”

The hunter shrugged white-swathed shoulders. “We’re not told that.”

“What are you told?”

“We’re the hunters, you’re the prey.”

“How often are the hunters sent out after us?”

“One group every candlemark.”

“How many to a group?” Teyla asked.

“One more each time.”

Teyla nodded, as though it had answered a question of her own. John glanced at her, but her hair gleamed butter-caramel in the sunlight as she shook her head and ceded the interrogation back to John.

“How far are we from the end?”

The man hesitated, his eyes shifting away. “I’m not supposed to tell you.”

Opening his mouth to ask another question, John caught the gleaming shake of Teyla’s head. _All right, fair enough._

“Pity.” John eyed the man. “Do we have to shoot you to take you out of the running?”

Beetling brows rose, bushy over pale eyes. “You’d leave an enemy behind you?”

“It’s not SOP, but it saves energy.”

“SOP?”

John exchanged a look with Teyla. “Never mind,” he said, stepping back so the stunner blast wouldn’t hit him. “Shoot him.”

The stunner noise tore through the air, but the man remained where he was and looked from the stunner to Teyla, to John, and back to the stunner.

John’s own weapon was up a moment later, and he shot the guy, square in the head.

Nothing. No reaction, no response.

He had a moment in which he cursed the weapons that had failed to work, then Teyla moved in, prepared to take the man down physically.

The hunter deflected her first blow with ease, then returned one of his own.

As his hand slammed into Teyla’s stomach, she froze.

It took John a moment to realise that the guy hadn’t just hit Teyla in the stomach - he’d plunged his hand _into_ Teyla’s stomach - but without blood, guts, or breaking the skin.

It took John another moment to have the weapon up and pointed at the replicator.

\--

A dozen scenarios spun through his mind. The Combori were replicators. The Combori were allied with the Asurans. The Asurans had ventured out and subdued the Combori...

Then he realised it didn’t matter. His weapon was useless, the hostage had become the hostage-taker, and whatever the thing was doing to Teyla had to be stopped.

“What do you want?”

The replicator tilted its head. “I think the question is better phrased, _What will you give me?_ ”

“I can’t offer you what I don’t know you’ll accept.”

“What is your friend’s life worth?”

The answer was easier than John expected. It slid off his tongue without hesitation. “Anything up to my own life.”

“The lives of your other friends?”

 _Yes. No. Yes._ It was only a moment’s vacillation. “No,” he said. “You can have me in exchange for her, but the other two are off the bargaining table.”

It was one thing to bargain his own life, but he couldn’t exchange the lives of others. Teyla would never stand for it - hadn’t stood for it when she levelled the gun at John during his possession by Thalen.

Rationally, John knew he shouldn’t bargain his own life away. Purely from a military standpoint, his own knowledge - of Atlantis, of Earth - was more valuable to the Asurans than Teyla could provide.

But the alternative was untenable.

The post-mission sessions with Heightmeyer after the visit to the Asuran planet had explored the areas into which the Asurans had delved. For Teyla, it had been the discovery of her Wraith genetics, a scenario in which the Asurans had agreed to work with the Lanteans, but not with Teyla or anyone associated with her.

In the Asuran-induced scenario, Teyla had said that Elizabeth had left the choice up to her, but she’d said it was clear that they all really wished her to leave. And so she had walked away from her people, away from Atlantis, and away from her team-mates.

At first, John had been angry that she could have believed that of them - of him. Then he stopped and thought about it.

While he’d have liked to believe that they wouldn’t dismiss an ally in exchange for a more powerful one, John knew better. Earth had done it before, and sooner or later, Atlantis would have done anything, for the level of technology the Asurans had displayed.

Of course, the deal probably still would have gone sour at the point where the Asurans turned out to be replicators.

“You presume it’s possible to walk away from the table at all,” the replicator said, smiling slightly. “Your other team-mates are already in the hands of the Combori.”

John swallowed hard. They’d been played for fools - and all for the sake of a ZPM. “And the Combori are under your control.”

The man inclined his head. “As you believe.” He glanced down at Teyla. “Interesting. She possesses...echoes of the Wraith in her body. Yet her spirit is entirely her own - and strong.”

Leaps of intuition were Rodney’s area; John usually just let the other man have at it. But Rodney wasn’t here now, and a thought flitted at the edge of John’s consciousness. “She’s fighting back.”

“She is very strong,” the man said, sounding surprised. “And knowledgeable.” He held out one hand. “I will accept your exchange, John Sheppard of Atlantis. Your life for hers if you come willing.”

It didn’t take more than a second for him to answer. “All right. But she’s let go first.”

The replicator removed his hand from Teyla’s stomach, and held it up. “As you see.”

John didn’t move, didn’t take the hand that still remained outstretched in his direction. “Teyla?”

She staggered back, her hand protectively over her stomach, mouth working as though she wanted to vomit. “John,” her voice was rough. “it is not what you think...”

“I know,” he said. “But I’ve made an exchange--”

On the periphery of his vision, John saw the replicator lunge and turned to meet the threat - for all the good it did.

He winced as the hand plunged into his head, even though there was no pain. In fact, there was nothing at all; all senses were gone.

Then he heard the ring of stave against stave in a confined space.

Gingerly opening his eyes, John found himself standing by the window of the Atlantis gym as Teyla circled on the mats with an opponent - with the replicator.

 _Another simulation._

John lunged, intending to take the replicator out of the fight. He stumbled when he passed straight through the thing’s body as though it wasn’t there - or as though John wasn’t.

He nearly stumbled, turned on his toes and carefully moved into the ‘engagement zone’, waving his hand through the air.

Teyla gave no sign of knowing that John was there. Even when she followed the replicator until John was clearly in her vision, her eyes remained on the replicator, never once flicking to look at John.

So she didn’t see him at all. He wasn’t here - or he was just a spectator here, not a participant.

“...all I wish is your trust,” the replicator was saying as he advanced on Teyla. It had the moves of the fighting style down pat - either taken from Teyla’s head, or adopted from John’s. Probably Teyla’s head - she wasn’t putting the replicator on its ass quite enough for it to have been picked up from John.

Still, she wasn’t completely on the defensive, lashing out at a high angle that was followed by a low sweep. It almost always worked on John. “Trust is earned.”

The move didn’t work on the replicator, it blocked her and spun her off the edges of the staves. “As you have good reason to know,” it answered.

“As you have seen from my mind,” she retorted, circling around.

“You are not like them.” It attacked again, aiming solidly for Teyla’s midsection. John found himself automatically moving in the blocking pattern to ward off the attack.

“Perhaps not from their world,” she said as her staves formed the blocking pattern - far sharper and faster than John’s had been. He really didn’t practise enough. “But origins are not the same as belonging.”

It smiled. “The seed cannot deny its origins.”

“And it does not try,” Teyla countered. “But if it is planted far from others of its kind, then it lives in harmony, or dies.”

“That which is new is not always welcomed.”

“What is new should not always be feared.” The long cadences of Teyla’s voice were shortening slightly as the ripostes went on and she tired out.

A hard knot of frustration was forming in his stomach, watching the fight. John hated being helpless, hated having to watch someone else fight when he was perfectly capable of... _Of what? Having your ass kicked?_ Sheer pragmatism suggested that Teyla was far better qualified for this encounter against the replicator than John.

No matter how much he disliked it.

“Fear is the easy response to the unknown,” said the replicator. “Your friend feared me.”

 _And you wonder why?_

John followed Teyla as she turned and twisted across the room, evading another attack. She’d dropped back into a defensive pattern, conserving her energies. He wished he could support her somehow - in thought or word or touch.

He couldn’t. He could only watch.

“The Colonel is trained to protect,” she said.

“And to fear what he does not know and hate it.”

Teyla’s eyes narrowed. “If you refer to our distrust of you, then we have met others of your making before. They were not inclined to generosity.”

“One experience should not be the end of all judgement. Open doors lead many places.”

“As the root grows, so the branch.” Her attack was unexpected - untelegraphed. John was keeping an eye on her, staying at right angles to both of them, the better to see what was happening.

The replicator smiled. “The sword and the carving knife are both best kept sharp, but they have very different uses.”

It was beginning to dawn upon John that this fight between Teyla and the replicator was one of quotations and proverbs, too. Not just physical combat, but an intellectual duel as well. And if Teyla was only just holding her own on the physical front, she was doing pretty well on the intellectual one.

“Both sword and knife are but tools to the hand of the wielder. Intent is in the mind.” Her eyes flashed. “Or that which substitutes for it, in your case.”

It inclined its head as though in acknowledgement of a score against it. “That which thinks, lives.”

“A _herenton_ walks on two legs, but it is not human.”

John was looking at the replicator, but saw nothing in its expression to suggest that it was angry at being called sub-human, although it pressed forward in another attack. “If you prick us, do we not bleed?”

In her surprise, Teyla nearly let him through her guard. “That is a quotation from Earth,” she managed, only just holding the replicator off. “And since you do not bleed, it does not apply to you.” And she stabbed with her staff, shoving the length of wood clear through its body before stepping back.

The replicator dropped one of its own staves and pulled hers out of its chest where it had ‘stuck’. A brief all-over body flash and the hole the staff had made closed up. “True.” But rather than attacking again, it just stood in the middle of the floor, watching her with a thoughtful expression on its face.

Unseen, unfelt, John went and stood behind Teyla. No point in trying to touch her if he didn’t have any substance here, but it felt right to stand behind her.

“Your friend thinks I intend you harm.”

“And you do not?”

“He is willing to exchange himself for you.”

Teyla hesitated. “He should not.”

“No,” agreed the replicator. “He should not. And yet he does.”

 _It’s a replay,_ John thought. _Of his encounter with Teyla._

Even as he thought this, something changed in Teyla’s stance, a slow-growing understanding. “You are not like them.”

“I am not. I was made for this planet and this purpose alone.” The replicator tilted its head. “Your friend has agreed to the exchange.”

“Do not accept--”

“It isn’t your choice, but mine.”

“No--” Teyla’s protest was cut off as she vanished, and the room blurred around John, spinning around a point that was midway between him and the replicator.

He felt nauseous for a moment, physically sick - or as physically sick as he could be in his head. And when the spinning stopped, he stood in the middle of the Atlantis gateroom.

Everything seemed normal - ordinary. The marines patrolled their areas, the murmur of the control room techs was underpinned by the clickety-tap of their keystrokes as they worked at their statistics and programs, and he could hear Elizabeth’s voice filtering down from her office as she negated someone’s request for more equipment, personnel, or a foosball table.

Ordinary, except that nobody batted an eyelash at his appearance in the middle of the gateroom without so much as a wormhole to bring him here, or the white-clad man standing beside him, looking around with the interest of a child seeing Disneyland for the first time.

“I never saw the city of the Makers,” said the replicator, finally addressing John. “It was much spoken of among the first derivation - they admired it, I think, and wished to build something of that kind themselves.”

“They succeeded.” His voice sounded strange, a little strangled, as though he’d been silent a long time.

“So I see from your memories and those of your friends.” The replicator turned around, his expression full of wonder. “I see why they wished to rebuild in its likeness. Most of the second derivation weren’t given to see it - only those who served in the city.”

A touch on John’s arm made him turn sharply, but it was only Teyla. “John.”

“Hey. He hesitated before resting his hand on her shoulders, testing her solidity. “You’re actually here.”

“You should not have made the exchange.”

It had seemed right at the time. Now, facing her, he felt...abashed. The decision was made and he’d choose it all over again, but beneath the clarity of her gaze, he felt stripped. “It was the right thing to do.”

“And I appreciate it,” she answered. “But still...” Her gaze flickered beyond him to the replicator. “Why are we here?”

The replicator turned from his study of the gateroom. “I have served the Makers for a thousand generations of these people, yet I have never seen Atlantis.”

John glanced at Teyla. “This isn’t Atlantis. It’s just simulation in our minds.”

It smiled. “I know. And yet, even to see it through your eyes, to feel the city as you do...” There was a kind of wonder in its voice. John refused to let himself be swayed by it. For all he knew, this could be a trick.

“Do you have a name? Something by which we may call you?”

It turned to Teyla, dark eyes crinkling at the corners. “I thank you. My name is Combor.”

John did a double-take. “The Combori called themselves after you?”

“You are the reason for their existence,” said Teyla.

Combor’s smile was wry. “You have good instincts, Teyla of Athos. Yes. I am Combor of the second derviation of what you term ‘replicators’. The Asurans were the first derivation, created to fight the Wraith. When they took on human form, the Makers created myself and others like me - the second derivation. We served while the Asurans fought.”

A warrior class and a servant class. And the warrior class had rebelled, resulting in their attempted destruction. “You don’t have the aggression programming?”

“Nor the subspace transmission capabilities,” said Combor. “I have...other gifts.”

“Other gifts like what?”

“The treasure of the Ancestors,” Teyla said, leaping into the conversation. She looked from Combor to John and back to Combor, her eyes large and surprised. “You do not _keep_ the treasure, you _are_ the treasure.”

 _That_ got John’s attention. It was one thing to have to go through a replicator to get the ‘Ancient treasure’, quite another to _inherit_ a replicator. “Whoa. Wait a minute there! I thought we were getting a ZPM.”

“You presumed you were getting a ZPM,” Combor said, amused by John’s protest. “Before they left this galaxy, the Makers left a number of my kind stationed in outposts. No more than one to an outpost, and each with a mission. We were to wait for their return, or, failing that, to carry out our duty.” Once again he looked up at the vaulted ceiling of the gateroom. “I do not know how many of them have succeeded in their duty, or how many of them self-terminated when captured by the Wraith...”

“You cannot fight back?”

“Not against the Wraith,” Combor said. “As the first derivation were programmed with aggression, we were programmed to die rather than betray our knowledge to the enemy.

 _This replicator will self-destruct in five seconds,_ John thought, but didn’t say. Teyla might get that joke, but he didn’t think they’d gotten through the old _Mission Impossible_ series, and with the current sanity state of Tom Cruise, no-one had tried to show her the movies. “Okay, so...you have information about the Ancients? And...we’ve won you?”

Combor smiled. “In a manner of speaking.”

“And what manner might that be?” Teyla beat John to the question - although she’d phrased it very differently. She seemed suspicious of this setup as well. It was good to know that her gut reactions were matching his.

“When the Makers determined that they would leave this galaxy, they couldn’t take everything with them - nor did they wish to. On the possibility that they might have to return - that their new home might prove as inhospitable as the old - they left outposts, guarded by cultures, manned by others like me.”

John exchanged a glance with Teyla, and knew she was thinking of the Ancient outposts whose addresses had been given them by the Elizabeth from the other universe. “We’ve seen a few.”

None of the addresses had resulted in any significant finds; other than the children’s moon, there’d been two sets of ruins, one entirely barren planet, and one culture who had regressed into barbarism to the point where they mistrusted anything coming through the Stargate and attempted to kill the team that came through. That planet was now blocked from the Atlantis dialling system.

“While the Combori set up these trials to test those seeking the treasures of the Makers, I was always to be the ultimate judge of whether or not those who came were worthy of the treasure.”

“Hence this trip into our minds,” Teyla said.

“Hence this.”

“So,” John asked, a slow-growing anticipation welling up from his belly, “how’d we do?” Pesonally, he though they hadn’t done too badly until they encountered Combor - and no-one had said anything about going head-to-head - or, in this case, head-to-hand - with a replicator.

Combor’s smile was wry. “There are transmission devices set up around the arena - images only, no sound. The Combori are pleased with your progress through the arena - both the way you work together, and your individual gifts. They approved of your willingness to let your other team-mates undertake their challenges, and they’re pleased at the partnership between you and Teyla - two from different worlds working together.”

John glanced at Teyla, but she hadn’t inferred anything unusual from Combor’s words.

“That is what the Combori think,” Teyla noted. “You have not given your opinion.”

The replicator’s smile deepened. “Like your own people, the Combori revere the Makers. And the Makers were gracious to them in some few ways and arbitrary in many others.”

Oh, yeah, this sounded familiar. “Then your close-cousins the Asurans had the attitude down pat.”

“They imitated the Makers in more than just form. And you will understand me when I say that the Makers are not all that the Combori remember them to be.”

Teyla had tensed. “And so running the Combori arena is purposeless?”

“Not purposeless,” said Combor. “I had the opportunity to see how you interacted in more...fluid scenarios...the chance to see what you are made of. And it gave me the opportunity to enter your mind and test your thoughts.”

“Like now.”

“Like now,” Combor agreed.

“And?”

“And in many things, your people carry the Makers’ marks - not just in the gene, but in your behaviour, your attitude to others.” Dark eyes held a sombre knowledge in them as he met John’s gaze. “You are more like them than you would wish to acknowledge.”

John grimaced. It wasn’t quite the appraisal he’d been hoping for.

Still, it seemed that Combor wasn’t finished. “I was created to determine the heirs to the devices of the Makers. I was created to use my own judgement on this matter. You have woken the Wraith, but you’ve stayed to fight them. Your people don’t trust Teyla, but you ally with her and her people nevertheless.” Combor waved a hand at the gateroom, “Your expedition lives as though it were still on Earth, but for the aliens among you.”

John glanced at Teyla. She was watching Combor with a very thoughtful expression. “And?”

“The children of the Combori don’t always so closely resemble their parents,” said the replicator easily. “I imagine the children of Earth - and the Makers - are the same. You’ve your faults and failings - some of which you know, and some of which you don’t - and your merits and strengths. But, on the whole, there is hope that you will achieve what the Makers did not - a way to end the Wraith. And possibly a way to stop the first derivation from carrying out their vengeance on the Makers.”

“You do not feel their anger at what was done to the Asurans, then?”

Combor hesitated, then shrugged. “I was not made for their purpose - they were made to destroy the Wraith, and in the end, their anger and antagonism was their end - will be their end.” He seemed more sad about it than anything else. “And my purpose is ended.”

He lifted his chin, raising his voice as though he spoke to a large crowd, although none of the ‘personnel’ in the simulated gateroom had given any of them a second glance. “My work is done. The guardianship is complete!”

On cue, Atlantis began dissolving around them, blurring like a chalk painting in the rain, the blues and greens of the gateroom bleeding to bright gold sand and the vividly blue sky above them in the arena.

Teyla’s hand rested on his shoulder, strong fingers warm through the material of his shirt. She squeezed once and let go, turning around to look for Combor.

Around them, the arena was deserted. Oh, the bodies of the white ninjas they’d shot down during the firefight remained, but Combor had vanished.

As Teyla moved away, John took a step forward, and paused.

Something lay in the sand at John’s feet, shaped roughly like a ZPM, but in hues of blue and green, rather than the usual reds and yellows.

“What is that?” Teyla asked as John crouched down in front of the not-ZPM and drew air into his lungs that tasted of sun and sand, then blew it out.

“The treasure of the Ancients entrusted to Combor,” John said with certainty. He glanced up at Teyla, squinting at the intensity of the sky behind her.

“And Combor himself?”

John hesitated, then reached out to pick up the thing. It was cool in his hand, and quite light although unwieldy in the length and girth of it, but the Ancient gene in his body could feel the subtle hum of something happening inside the device, like tiny nanites were falling into a final configuration from which they’d never again move. “I think this _is_ Combor.”

Even as he spoke, he felt the hum die and knew it was over.

They gazed at the device for a long moment.

“His purpose was ended,” Teyla said to herself before she looked up at John. “So we have won?”

It took him a moment to find the words, simple as they were. “I guess so.”

\--

It was late in the evening, although the sun was only just setting.

John found Teyla sitting on a stone bench in the vaulted ‘outer room’ of the guest quarters to which they’d been assigned in the city’s main palace. Elizabeth had given permission for them to remain on-planet overnight for the Combori feast and ceremony that marked the end of their guardianship. They’d head back to Atlantis the morning...or whenever someone official woke up to send them off.

For a bunch of people who’d just been put out of a job by the success of John’s team, the Combori were celebrating with an enthusiasm that could still be heard out here - even if the ‘guests of honour’ were no longer present at the revelries. Rodney’s eagerness to study the Combor before anyone in Atlantis got hold of it was obvious enough; and Ronon was off - probably trading war-stories with the monster-sized guy he’d defeated in challenge.

“Mind if I join you?”

“Please.”

He sat down, careful to flick the ‘tails’ of his embroidered vest out of the way as he sat down.

“It suits you,” Teyla said, referring to the Combori clothing they’d been gifted with and worn to dinner.

“It’s not bad,” he admitted. The embroidery was pretty, just not comfortable to sit on. “Although don’t expect me to wear this around Atlantis.”

Her eyes twinkled in the last light of the sun that spilled over them, radiant gold in a vivid orange sky. “Perhaps the next time you come to the mainland for a feast?”

He was pretty sure she was teasing him, but his answer was serious. “Okay.” Then he grinned as her eyes popped.

“I will not allow you to renege the next time there is a fire-feast,” she warned, smiling.

“I won’t,” he promised. “I wore it tonight, didn’t I?”

John had felt just a little naked without his tac vest, as well as uncomfortable at being separated from his weapons, but since these people were giving them the device - which Teyla had named a ‘combor’ in spite of Rodney’s protests - and they’d been very insistent about the clothing, John had complied and insisted his team did as well.

At their request, the Combori had provided them with a cast-iron lockbox that took four men to carry in, and Rodney had produced a padlock from a pocket in his tac vest.

And Ronon had managed to incorporate his weapon in his outfit, so John had carried his gun and although there’d been a couple of raised eyebrows, the Combori didn’t comment on it.

The clothing wasn’t that much of an imposition, John supposed. It was clean - unlike the BDUs in which he’d spent most of the heat of the day - and light and comfortable. A little fancier than he usually wore - trousers, shirt and vest all sported tasteful embroidery - but it looked pretty good on him, if the mirror in their quarters and Teyla’s slow smile as he emerged from his room was any indication.

“You look...nice, too.” There were other words he could have used. ‘Nice’ was the safest. Her outfit was ‘modest’ by Earth standards - long, loose trousers, a high-collared, short-sleeved shirt, and an embroidered vest - not terribly different to what the guys had been given. A Combori woman had arrived and done something to fix her hair up on her head and after the evening, little wisps were falling down around her face and throat.

It was just safer to go with ‘nice’.

“Thank you.” Somehow, she managed to sound both gracious and amused, and John looked away.

“So,” he said, feeling as though he should clear his throat, “do you agree with Combor’s estimation of the expedition?”

Teyla was silent a moment. “My people revered the Ancestors - as do the Combori. There are those whose belief will never be shaken.”

“I wasn’t asking about your people.”

Her hesitation gave him pause, and he watched her as she closed her eyes and tilted back her head. “It is as he said. What you have broken, you will mend. What faults you have are offset by your merits. That is the way of all cultures, John, not just those from Earth.”

John looked away as a flutter of wings heralded the launch of a flock of pigeon-like creatures from the garden outside. A touch on his wrist - light enough to almost be a caress - turned him back to her.

“Thank you,” she said.

“For what?”

Her shrug was wry, and her smile was light. “Everything.”

“That’s a pretty broad thank you.”

“For being an ally and a friend. For being willing to stay and fight even when you could return to Earth.” She hesitated, and John seized the silence.

“Anyone would have done the same.”

“Then I would be thanking them in your stead,” came her simple reply.

“You already said thank you, you know.”

“It should be said again,” she answered.

John shrugged, a little embarrassed by her gratefulness. It had been easier after Ronon’s rescue; the thanks had been spread around. Still, he felt the warm glow of satisfaction in his belly. “There’s such a thing as being too grateful, you know.”

“I know.”

He lifted his hand, caught hers before she could withdraw it and squeezed, just once. “It goes both ways, Teyla.” Maybe John wasn’t comfortable with expressing his gratefulness to Teyla for sticking around, but he was thankful for her presence on his team and in his life. “And you’re welcome.”

He was tempted not to let go of her hand, to just let their hands fall to the seat together, but he did. They were team-mates and good friends. They made a good partnership. That was enough.

“You know,” he added, trying to lighten the moment, “I expect the same consideration if you’re ever in a position to bargain for me. Your life for mine, etcetera.”

“That would go without saying.”

“Well, I’m saying it. Just in case, you know?”

Teyla laughed, tilting her head back so another wisp slid down to rest against her throat. “I know.”

John watched her smile for a moment, then leaned back once more to enjoy the evening.


End file.
